Hello readers! I'm excited to show you the rest of Flower in a Pot #7! As you can see below I started adding more layers onto the applique. My goal in this post is to talk to you about how I pick the threads I use for my blanket stitching.
In the picture below you can see how I travel between pieces whenever possible. If you look at the blue blanket stitching on the bottom piece you can see that I traveled from the first to the send leaf with some straight stitching. I do this whenever I am close to the next piece and I know another piece will cover it. That covering piece should be dark enough to cover the threads. You wouldn't want to do some black stitching and then cover it with a light yellow piece where the black might show through.
Here you can see that I have added the light green blanket stitching around the darker green leaves. I decided to use a lighter thread to match the dots to make them pop. If I'd used a darker thread to match the background of the dark green it wouldn't highlight the dots as well. If I didn't want to highlight the dots at all the dark green would've been a better choice. I like to use contrasting colored thread a lot to help play up the fabrics I'm using.
Below you can see me testing threads for stitching down the red flower, One is slightly darker and one is lighter. I still couldn't tell which one I'd like best. What to do?
The thing to do is to unwind a little bit of thread and lay it on top of the piece. Then you can tell what effect it's going to have when you stitch with the threads. The thread that starts in the lower left corner disappears a lot when it goes over the flower. The thread that starts in the lower right corner is more visible on the flower. Depending on whether or not I want it to show, I make a decision about which to use.
Since this red batik has a ton of texture to it I decided to go with the lower left thread that blended in more to let the fabric shine instead of sharing the spotlight with the thread.
Here is layer 2 complete.
A close up of the pot base shows that I used a darker turquoise to outline the turquoise and lime batik. I didn't want to use lime because it would take away from the swirls, but I didn't want it to match exactly either, so I chose a slightly darker shade of turquoise. It shows up, but is still subtle.
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Here is the back of the blanket stitching. I've kept the size of the stitches fairly uniform on this flower. The blue stitching is a little larger than the others, but not by much.
Here is the final block. I really liked playing around with mixing blues and greens on this block. None of them are true blues or greens. They are all variations and it was really fun to try to put some of my stranger greens and blue/green combination fabrics together in a way that pleased the eye. I'm very happy with the final composition.
Here's the back with the stabilizer still attached.
Happy Saturday! I hope you find some time to quilt. I'd love to see what you're doing with my Flower in a Pot patterns. Please join me in my
Machine Applique Adventures Facebook Group and share what you're appliqueing!
Suzy
